One of the soldiers in the control room stepped between Andros and the door.
“Please make sure Mr. Andros stays in his seat.”
“Hey!” Andros protested. “I just want to—”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the soldier said.
Andros tried to push his way past Jenkins.
Bad idea.
Jenkins tripped him and he crashed to the floor. Before Andros could rise, Jenkins started dragging him back toward his seat.
“You can’t do this!”
He grabbed at the hand holding onto his ankle. Wallace ended Andros’ resistance by putting a pistol to his head.
“I could have you shot for dereliction of duty,” he growled. “This facility is under the Uniform Code of Military Justice in wartime. Lucky for you, I’ve got a wife and son myself.”
He turned to Jenkins. “Secure him.”
Jenkins quickly handcuffed Andros to his seat.
“Hey! What if we need to—”
“He’ll uncuff you.”
Sanderson swallowed and changed the subject. “Could you tell me about what’s going on?” He hadn’t gotten very deeply into the techniques of space combat before he failed out.
“The Boers are still focused on military targets,” Wallace said, an edge of irritation in his voice. “They hit San Francisco and Belleville, true, but the President and Air Mobility Command were there. The only major civilian targets they’ve hit are the power satellites, although they’ve certainly tried for Philly.”
“Well that’s awfully nice of them,” Sanderson said sarcastically.
Wallace snorted. “Or awfully clever. The less civilian suffering there is, the more likely we might be to do a deal later, if they secure Australia.” He smiled. “Of course, conquering Australia requires them to win the war in orbit, which we’re doing our best to prevent.”
The public address system crackled once more.
“This is Captain Samuel Jackson, calling from the Montgomery,” said a voice forcing its way through the static.
Sam!
“We took two missiles early in the fight. General Thomas and his staff are dead. I’m commanding from one of the gunnery pods. We’ve shot off all our kinetics and most of our ammo.”
Sanderson swallowed. That meant they were pretty much defenseless.
“The command links still work. We can coordinate the bombing of the—”
Then the signal cut off abruptly.
Oh no.
Wallace’s eyes bulged.
“Shit,” he swore. “Shit and fuck! They blew up the Montgomery!”
The revelation that one of his closest friends was dead hit Sanderson in the gut. He remembered how joyful Sam’s bride Cassandra had been at their wedding—how heartbroken she would be when the men in the dress uniforms showed up at their house.
Assuming she’s even still alive…
He down into his chair, tears stinging his eyes. Before he had a chance to weep, Wallace seized him by his shoulders.
“I know he was your friend, but you’ve got to keep it together!” the soldier shouted. “With the Montgomery gone, we’ll have to coordinate orbital attacks groundside, which’ll slow us down. That means we’ll need everything we can possibly throw up there!”
The humming of the electromagnetic rails beneath their feet and the subsequent thunder accentuated his point.
“A…all right,” Sanderson stammered. A growing anger began to push his shock and grief away.
He could mourn later. Right now, it was time to punish the Boer bastards.
Kariba Command Center, Walker Staten, Afrikaner Confederation
8:55 AM
Marom exhaled in exasperation. One would think Covert Operations would have put as much effort into hitting the coil-guns as they did Cape Canaveral. The Americans were still working the bugs out of the laser-launch facility they’d set up in Florida. The old, reliable coil-guns were a far bigger problem.
He watched as a group of interceptors plugged a critical gap over the American shipyards at Newport News. Three warheads targeting the site were quickly dispatched, while a kinetic spear smashed a nearby submarine.
Lord, have mercy on Your people.
His eyes jumped over to the Confederation. The Afrikaners were replenishing their orbital arsenals too, but their launch capability was rapidly declining. A rocket launched from the Namib Desert deployed a dozen interceptors and kinetic weapons before a cruise missile fired from an American submarine destroyed the launch site.
Unless something changed, the Confederation would lose the war.
His gaze jumped back to North America. More satellites rose into orbit from the American facility near Albuquerque. Not only were the defenses of the East Coast being replaced, but the Americans were replenishing the masses of weaponry tearing the Confederation and its allies apart.
Then Marom noticed something.
The primary concentrations being reinforced floated over the East Coast and Europe. However, once the Americans parried the initial attacks against California and the Midwest, they made little effort to replenish the interceptors expended over the center and west of the country. In fact, they stripped those regions bare.
He quickly called his superiors.
Earth Orbit, Over the Atlantic
3:57 AM
Four hundred miles above the Earth, a signal from the besieged heart of Africa roused an inactive nuclear attack satellite. Its rockets lit up, sliding it along the curve of the Earth toward North America.
It passed through hell on its way.
Debris from three Afrikaner ballistic missiles, destroyed before they could deploy their warheads, littered the cylinder’s path. Although most of the wreckage had been blown clear, enough still remained to be a problem, particularly since the battles between spaceplanes and battle-stations were adding more debris every second.
Danger! The satellite approached several large pieces of metallic debris. Two of its maneuvering jets fired, enabling it to avoid all but one piece of debris. That piece tore into one of the cylinder’s engines. The engine hiccupped and died, but the remaining rockets pushed the cylinder on for a little longer. Then the cylinder drifted with its rockets shut off to mimic a harmless meteor or piece of junk. Only an occasional, barely perceptible puff of maneuvering gas kept it on target.
An enemy satellite moved to intercept. The cylinder’s engines and maneuvering thrusters fired, shifting its course. The interceptor’s own maneuvering jets replied, altering its course to match.
The two satellites engaged in a duel of movement, the interceptor firing its jets in response to the cylinder’s moves. The two vehicles danced a dance where one misfire or fuel leak could prove fatal.
The interceptor drew nearer. Designed solely to engage in such contests, it had more fuel to burn. The cylinder, on the other hand, was running out of both fuel and options. Maneuvering to avoid being destroyed by the interceptor and yet remain on course consumed most of its fuel.
However, its designers had given it one more card to play. A small battery-powered turret whirred to life at the front of the cylinder. It fired a small explosive projectile at the interceptor.
The interceptor was not designed to deal with such things, but its onboard computer did its best. The interceptor’s jets fired and it literally dodged the bullet. Unfortunately for its masters below, the interceptor’s escape left it unable to fulfill its primary function of stopping the nuclear attack satellite.
As it crossed the Appalachian Mountains, the cylinder’s nose-cone folded open. Small carbon-dioxide jets attached to the warheads hissed and the first one emerged. Two more warheads slipped out and by the time the fourth warhead escaped, the first had already plummeted toward its target.
The cylinder’s narrow escape had been reported and a more capable attacker now approached. An American spaceplane lurking behind a debris cloud fired its rocket engines and ascended to challenge the Afrikaner war machine.
The cylinder continued belchin
g out its lethal cargo. Its lack of fuel made its doom inevitable.
Five, six, seven warheads were out. The eighth warhead’s thrusters were propelling it forward when the American pilot launched a nuclear-tipped short-range missile.
The cylinder died, taking two of its warheads with it. Despite this minor failure, it had fulfilled its mission. Most of its cargo fell toward the United States. By the time the blast effects dissipated and the pilot spotted the warheads, it would be too late to stop them.
Albuquerque Launch Field, New Mexico, USA
11:59 PM
Sirens howled once more throughout the complex.
“Warheads inbound,” the public-address system said.
Wallace moved quickly. “All right,” he ordered. “It’s no longer safe here. Can you run the system from the shelter?”
Sanderson turned to Peabody.
“When did we last test the backups?” he asked.
Peabody nervously toyed with her copper-colored hair. “Two weeks ago. I doubt anything’s broken since then.”
“Given all the electromagnetic pulses getting thrown around over our heads, do you want to risk trusting it?”
“Carl, the lights are still on and we’ve had no—”
“Sanderson, we need to get all essential personnel to the shelters immediately,” Wallace interrupted. “Can we do it?”
Sanderson’s eyes swept the control room. “Okay,” he said. “Strictly speaking, we only really need one person.”
“I can manage it,” Peabody said. “I do most of the day-to-day launch work anyway.”
Sanderson looked at her. If she stayed up there, her chances weren’t good. He also wanted to get a few more good whacks against the Boers, something he could not do cowering in a basement.
“I have a better idea,” Sanderson said. “I’ll do it.”
“Sir!” she exclaimed. “Right now, speed is essential and it’s been a long time since you’ve done my job.”
“That may be,” Sanderson conceded, “but there are other reasons.”
With all the radioactive crap going around out there, there’d be few enough fertile people of either sex once this is done. He’d read somewhere in a species-survival situation, fewer men would be needed than women.
She snorted and crossed her arms. “Chivalry is a fine thing to risk national survival on and—”
“Those nukes are getting closer!” Wallace barked. “Sanderson, is there a way to set the system to launch automatically?”
“Yes, there is,” Sanderson replied. “But we haven’t used it in—”
“Get it running and get your ass into the shelter. Peabody, you go downstairs. I’ll join you shortly.”
She frowned but obeyed. Jenkins and Andros followed.
Sanderson swallowed. “Sorry you couldn’t make that call,” he said.
“Thanks,” Andros replied bitterly.
Sanderson sat in Peabody’s chair and began keying in the sequences to launch automatically. Wallace stood behind him, watching him work. That bothered him a little.
“Could you not do that?”
“Just making sure everything goes right.”
Sanderson continued his work. As he typed, something glinted above him. He looked up. A cluster of new stars, growing brighter by the second, appeared in the eastern sky.
The warheads.
Columns of light rose from the ground as interceptors launched and lasers fired. He wasn’t going to count on those. He started typing faster, but the quicker he typed, the more typos he needed to fix.
“Major,” Sanderson said. “You can’t do much here. You might as well go downstairs.”
Wallace fell silent. “Okay. Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
Wallace left. Sanderson bit his lip and began keying in the last sequence.
Damn it, fuck! He’d plugged in the wrong code. Sanderson deleted the last few lines and started over. As he typed in the remaining code sequences, he imagined the warheads detonating overhead, the wave of fire and hurricane-force winds smashing the command center.
O Lord my God, I now, at this moment, readily and willingly accept at Your hands whatever kind of death it may please You to send me, with all its pains, penalties and sorrows. Amen.
He wondered for a moment how long he’d have to wait in Purgatory, and if Heaven would have those DVDs he’d bought but never got the chance to watch.
Sanderson turned away from the window and closed his eyes. In the unlikely event that he survived, the flash might not blind him. He inhaled.
Thunder cracked. Everything went white.
Kariba Command Center, Walker Staten, Afrikaner Confederation
9:01 AM
Uys cheered as the detonation markers appeared over the American launch site. Marom did not join in his comrade’s exuberant joy, nor did he smile. Enormous numbers of people had just died because of him.
He tried to focus on the military ramifications of destroying the launch site. With the Americans’ ability to replenish their defenses and to attack reduced, the Afrikaners might yet win the day. If they could hurt the vaunted American industrial machine, the Americans would not be able to reinforce their beleaguered allies until far too late.
Of course, the human cost of destroying the American ability to make war would be vast beyond comprehension. Marom tried to force away the images of children with oozing radiation sores and empty eye sockets from his mind.
“We just hit Chicago!” Uys shouted. “They’re already cracking!”
Marom sighed. His prediction was beginning to come true. The Americans, though often debauched and heretical, had homes and families they loved as much as he and his people loved theirs. It was necessary for his people to win, but it would be wrong to glory in it.
“How much?”
“Two warheads and thirty kinetics, sir.”
“That ought to take care of it, then.” He shook his head. He’d been there once before, on a trip celebrating his graduation from university. He remembered the Field Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry fondly, and hoped they might perhaps come through all right.
“What the hell!”
Marom’s eyes snapped upward to the plasma screen.
More interceptors rose from Albuquerque!
Albuquerque Launch Field, New Mexico, USA
12:04 AM
Sanderson groaned as he awoke. His vision swam with green and purple, but his groping hand crawled across the familiar outline of a console. He was still in the control room.
“Hello?” he called out. He listened for the roaring of the great fires he knew would accompany a nuclear hit. Nothing. He inhaled, searching for the smell of smoke. Nothing.
The ground rumbled beneath his feet and the hairs on the back of his neck rose. Thunder cracked a second later.
The launchers survived. He grinned.
Looks like the Boers failed.
Sanderson crossed himself, thanking God and Mother Mary. He blinked. Details began poking through the colorful haze clouding his vision. He could vaguely see a few feet in front of him—it looked like the windows were intact, as well as the launch controls—but little more.
Booted feet echoed behind him. “Sanderson!” Wallace shouted. “Are you all right?”
“Well,” he began, “I can’t see very well, but that’s about it.” Hands on his back guided him into a chair. “What happened?”
“The ground defenses took down all but one of the warheads,” Wallace said. “Glad we installed those Metal Storm guns last year—the next-to-last warhead got shredded just as it entered the detonation zone.”
Uh oh.
“You said next-to-last warhead. What about the last one?”
Wallace did not respond immediately. That meant something had gone wrong.
“The last warhead must have been damaged somehow,” he said slowly. “It veered off-course and detonated over Albuquerque.”
Sanderson sat bolt upright in his chair. His gaze l
eapt to the windows. Despite his damaged eyes, he saw the outlines of a mushroom cloud looming over the city like some Japanese movie monster.
“No!”
“I’m sorry,” Wallace said. “If you want the good news, it wasn’t intended as a city-destroyer. Most people will probably survive.”
That was a damn small consolation. Instead of 600,000 people dying, 100,000 people would die. He hoped Andros’s family had survived.
“The Army’s sending decontamination crews to collect the debris from the missiles we destroyed, so we should be safe. We’re going to have to stay inside for a while though. All that crap from Albuquerque’s probably going to drift over here.”
Kariba Command Center, Walker Staten, Afrikaner Confederation
9:07 AM
No! Marom suppressed his urge to pound his fist on his desk as he watched the status reports roll in and the Afrikaners’ defenses continue to erode.
“Sir,” Uys said. “The Rijnsburg’s down.”
The Rijnsburg not only coordinated attacks on enemy ground targets; it kept enemy spacecraft occupied and parried attacks on the Afrikaner heartland. Without it, Africa would be all but naked before an enemy orbital attack.
“What defenses do we have?” Marom asked.
“Some interceptors survive and there are missiles, lasers, and aircraft at Leachport. That ought to keep the blery Americans off for a while.”
Then the spider-web of lights covering central Africa winked out.
“The Americans have hit Air Defense Command,” Uys said. “Hopefully some of them will come back online soon.”
Some of them did, but many did not. Marom suspected it was an electromagnetic pulse. The enemy had more advanced circuitry shielding against EMP, a technology the Afrikaners largely lacked.
More missiles penetrated the crumbling orbital defenses. Ground-based weapons snatched some of them out of the sky, but others struck home, further devastating the Confederation.
Marom’s heart sank. It would only be a matter of time. Barring a major reversal, the enemy would bombard the Confederation until the entire nation lay mutilated and dead.
“Damn,” Uys swore. Marom raised an eyebrow at his subordinate’s language, until he saw the plasma screen.
Locust-swarms of smaller lights erupted from Italy, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, British West Africa, and even South America. Enemy aircraft were joining the fun. The Americans and their allies wanted their pilots to soak up the Afrikaners’ remaining space weapons with their bodies, or the state of the orbital arsenal was worse than he thought.
Pressure Suite - Digital Science Fiction Anthology 3 Page 2
